Bob Sacks is an avid Publishing futurist, electrifying the media and marketing industry with the good and bad news about what he calls “El-CID” or Electronically Coordinated Information Distribution. This BLOG will follow the trends of Publishing as it continues to evolve.

LONDON: Internet and TV channels may be getting an increasing number of eyeballs, but newspapers are holding out to the competition as their circulation rose last year across the world on booming demand in India and China, World Association of Newspapers (WAN) said.

The paid-for newspaper circulation rose by 1.9% over the 12 months and by 8.7% over five years to more than 510 million copies in 2006. Similarly, the number of new paid-for titles crossed 11,000 mark for the first time in the history, WAN said, quoting preliminary data from its World Press Trends survey.

"Circulations continue to grow globally and not just in China and India,” it said, while asserting that these facts and figures have belied various myths about the newspapers, liek “circulations are falling” and “newspaper as a medium and a business is on decline".

India and China played a major role in the rising circulations. Excluding Asia (including India and China), the global paid-for circulation was up just 0.04%.

Across the various sub-continents, Asia recorded a 2.99% growth, second-biggest after South America’s 4.59%. However, North America recorded a decline of 1.97% in the paid-for circulations in 2006. Asia recorded the biggest rise of 6.13% in the number of paid-for titles, as against 3.22% globally and declines in North and South Americas. Free daily newspaper circulation more than doubled over the five years to 40.8 million copies a day.

Including free newspapers, the circulation rose by a higher rate of 4.3% in one year and by 14.2% over five years. The number of paid-for newspapers and the combined total of free and paid-for titles rose to 510.4 million and 551.2 million in 2006.

Links

About Me

a veteran of the printing/publishing industry since 1970, Bob Sacks was always an innovator. Even back in the 70s he followed a more creative path than usual. He started his career where some people end -- with the founding of his own weekly newspaper in the metro New York area.
After several years in the alternative press publishing newspapers in New York and Tucson, Az., he went on to become one of the founding fathers of High Times Magazine.
Since then Bob has held positions that include Publisher, Editor, Freelance Writer, Director of Manufacturing and Distribution, Senior Sales Manager, Circulator, Chief of Operations, Pressman, Cameraman, Lecturer, and Developer of web site companies.
Bob’s resume lists directorships at such prestigious companies as McCall's, Time Inc, New York Times Magazine Group, International Paper, Ziff-Davis, CMP, and Bill Communications (VNU).